Chapter 13--The Secret Riddle
In which Dumbledore makes more unfounded assumptions about Merope, attempts to get a woman drunk, hears many unpleasant things which he ignores, and teaches a psychopath how to set fires.
Katie was removed to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries the following day, by which time the news that she had been cursed had spread all over the school, though the details were confused and nobody other than Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Leanne seemed to know that Katie herself had not been the intended target.
I think that just saying "St. Mungo's Hospital" or "St. Mungo's" would have been sufficient. I mean, I go to the Conklin Building's Center for Wound Care and Hyperbaric Medicine every month or so. But no one calls it that. Even the people who work there don't call it that. They call it the Conklin Building, or the Wound Center. Infinitely simpler.
Also, I'd just like to note that Leanne never appeared before HBP, despite the fact that she's supposed to be a friend of Katie Bell, who's been around since the first book. Leanne never appears again, either. Can you say, "blatant plot device"?
"Oh, and Malfoy knows, of course," said Harry to Ron and Hermione, who continued their new policy of feigning deafness whenever Harry mentioned his Malfoy-Is-a-Death-Eater theory.
I don't know why they're ignoring Harry, because it's not a far-fetched theory at all. Draco is the one who, at twelve, told a Polyjuiced Harry and Ron that he'd like to help the Heir of Slytherin kill all the Mudbloods. Draco called Hermione a Mudblood in public, which is very racist for the wizarding world. Draco's father is a known Death Eater--heck, Ron and Hermione helped Harry fight him back in June. They know that Lucius is in Azkaban. They know that Draco loves his father and tries to imitate him in all things--half of his sentences are prefaced with "My father says." Even if they disregard what Draco said on the train about doing Voldemort a great service as mere boasting, Ron and Hermione know perfectly well where Draco's sympathies lie.
Harry goes to Dumbledore's office the following Monday for more of those private lessons with Dumbledore and his Pensieve. Dumbledore knows that Harry witnessed Katie's "accident" (though I'd call being handed a cursed necklace an on-purpose, wouldn't you?). After it's established that Katie is still very sick and that Snape, not Madam Pomfrey, came up with a treatment to "prevent a rapid spread of the curse," Harry asks Dumbledore where he was that weekend. Dumbledore's reply:
"I would rather not say just now," said Dumbledore. "However, I shall tell you in due course."
Harry is surprised by this. "You will?" is his reaction.
"Yes, I expect so," said Dumbledore, withdrawing a fresh bottle of silver memories from inside his robes and uncorking it with a prod of his wand.
Uh-HUH. Don't hold your breath, Harry. There's a vast difference between "I'll tell you when it's time" and "I think I'll tell you." As underlucius put it, it's like a parent saying "We'll see" when you ask if you can go to the sweet shop today.
Harry then mentions seeing Mundungus Fletcher in Hogsmeade. Dumbledore's reply is interesting:
"Ah yes, I am already aware that Mundungus has been treating your inheritance with light-fingered contempt," said Dumbledore, frowning a little.
First, I have to say I like the phrase "light-fingered contempt." But--wait a second, Dumbledore. You KNEW that Mundungus is stealing Harry's inheritance from Twelve Grimmauld Place? And you didn't think to mention it to the boy before now? He's losing his property. That's definitely his business, wouldn't you say? And if you didn't consider it his business, then it should have been the business of the Dursleys--whether you like them or not, they are his legal guardians.
Also, I don't know how wizarding law works, but I don't think that even the wizarding world would look very favorably on someone who discovers that a crime is being committed but who doesn't tell the victim and who does nothing to stop it. I believe the term for this is "accessory after the fact."
This is bad enough, but what Dumbledore says next is the icing on the cake.
"He has gone to ground since you accosted him outside the Three Broomsticks; I rather think he dreads facing me.
I rather got the impression that he dreaded facing HARRY. And that he might be afraid of, oh, I don't know, getting thrown in Azkaban for theft. Dumbledore didn't strike me as being part of the equation.
Harry then tells Dumbledore that he suspects Draco of being the one who gave Katie the necklace. Dumbledore gives him a politician's answer:
"I shall take all appropriate measures to investigate anyone who might have had a hand in Katie's accident."
Which does not mean, please note, that he'll investigate. Just that he'll take steps toward investigation. It's not the same thing.
Dumbledore then gives us a recap of what happened after the Pensieve scene in Chapter 10. Riddle went home to Little Hangleton; Merope, who was pregnant, remained in London. Harry, quite sensibly, wants to know how Dumbledore knows that Merope was in London.
"Because of the evidence of one Caractacus Burke," said Dumbledore, "who, by an odd coincidence, helped found the very shop whence came the necklace we have just been discussing."
Caractacus Burke's name is a shout-out to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by Ian Fleming. The hero of the story is Caracatus Potts, the inventor of the eponymous car. Say it fast--"crackpot." Burke's first name is almost the same…and of course, in England, a "berk" is a fool.
Burke relates how Merope, ragged and very pregnant, came to him to sell the locket her father almost strangled her with. He says that he confirmed the locket was Salazar Slytherin's with a few spells.
That's very odd, because men do not normally wear lockets, and, as near as I've been able to discover by Googling, lockets first started appearing in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries--roughly eight hundred years after the time of the Founders. I suspect that JKR's math is at fault again.
Burke describes the necklace as "almost priceless" because it belonged to Slytherin, and seems very proud of giving Merope ten Galleons in exchange. That's seventy-three dollars and thirty cents in American money, fifty pounds in British money, and 71.6 euros, according to the Wizarding World Currency Converter.
Harry is indignant about Merope being cheated, and doesn't understand why Merope didn't just use magic to get food for herself. I expected Dumbledore to say something about conjured food tasting like real food, but lacking certain nutrients…something, in other words, about magic being a useful tool but not a replacement for reality. Which, apparently, JKR said in an interview here. Here's the quote: There is legislation about what you can conjure and what you can't. Something that you conjure out of thin air will not last.
Although if conjured food doesn't last, as she states in the interview, I wonder about that feast at the beginning of every school term.
However, instead of explanations about the nature of magic and why Merope couldn't or shouldn't have conjured food, we get more of Dumbledore's assumptions:
"… it is my belief-I am guessing again, but I am sure I am right - that when her husband abandoned her, Merope stopped using magic.
This would make more sense if we had ever seen Merope START to use magic. There's no evidence that she knew how to cast a single successful spell. In fact, she may have been the Squib her father accused her of being.
And even if you accept Dumbledore's word that Merope used a love potion, she didn't have to brew it personally. She could have bought one, or even shoplifted one.
Of course, it is also possible that her unrequited love and the attendant despair sapped her of her powers; that can happen.
It's clear in retrospect that Rowling inserted this line to cover her arse about Tonks. But considered simply as information about Merope…well, it seems that Dumbledore is blaming Merope again, saying that her refusal, conscious or subconscious, to use magic caused her death. Me, I think that poverty, lack of food (and most likely shelter and pre-natal care as well, for they too cost money), plus years of abuse took their toll far more than lack of magic did.
In any case, as you are about to see, Merope refused to raise her wand even to save her own life."
*mimicking Dumbledore-Stu* In any case, we never see Merope again. We hear about her, but the glimpse we got of her in Chapter 10 is all that we get. Therefore, we don't know if Merope refused to raise her wand to save her own life or not.
Also, I think that Dumbledore has just crossed the line from guesswork to outright lying.
After a bit more discussion about Merope (who, Dumbledore says, "never had your mother's courage"--and how does HE know how much courage it took for her to endure living with her father and brother?), we're told whose memory we'll be sharing this time:
"This time," said Dumbledore, "we are going to enter my memory. I think you will find it both rich in detail and satisfyingly accurate.
You know, Rowling, if the memory is detailed and accurate, you won't have to tell me. I'll notice on my own. The fact that you're telling me this ahead of time makes me suspect that you know it's neither, but that you hope I'll believe you and not the evidence of my own eyes.
Oh, and when did Dumbledore start imitating Gilderoy Lockhart when it comes to self-promotion?
The Pensieve takes Dumbledore and Harry to a street in London. We then get a look at the younger version of Dumbledore:
This younger Albus Dumbledore's long hair and beard were auburn.
I suspect that Dumbledore's hair is auburn because it is shown to be in the diary flashback in CoS.
Nevertheless, the auburn hair is rather odd, as this is the year that Tom Riddle is invited to enter Hogwarts. According to HBP, Tom was born on December 31st. JKR says that he was born in 1926. This would mean that he'd have to wait till the September of what would be his twelfth year to enter Hogwarts--which makes this 1938. According to the official timeline, Dumbledore was born around 1840. This auburn-haired Stu is ninety-eight years old.
I know that wizards can live longer than Muggles, and that they sometimes look about twenty years younger than their true age. So I could see it if Dumbledore looked seventy-something, or even sixtyish. But an auburn-haired man of nearly one hundred? He must be one of Miss Clairol's best customers, that's all I can say.
Having reached their side of the street, he strode off along the pavement, drawing many curious glances due to the flamboyantly cut suit of plum velvet that he was wearing.
This purple velvet suit--which I envision looking something like this:
reminds me of a routine that satirist Mark Russell used to do involving euphemisms for homosexuality:
"A kid comes home from school and says, "Mom. Dad. You'd better sit down for this. I've something to tell you. I'm...flamboyant."
Anyway, we follow Velvet Goldmine! Dumbledore to an orphanage, where we meet Mrs. Cole, the matron. I love her reaction to Dumbledore's suit:
...her eyes fell upon Dumbledore and she stopped dead in her tracks, looking as astonished as if a giraffe had just crossed her threshold.
Considering that it's 1938 and that Muggle mens' fashion tend toward the conservative, that's an excellent comparison.
Mrs. Cole and Dumbledore go to her room--"part sitting room, part office" is how it's described. Dumbledore announces that he's here about Tom Riddle.
Mrs. Cole seems to be a fairly intelligent woman. She doesn't see how Tom got a place at Hogwarts; she knows he's never put in for a scholarship, and when Dumbledore says that Tom's been down for Hogwarts since birth, Mrs. Cole becomes suspicious, and wants to know who registered him. It's a good question, since Merope died in childbirth and Tom Riddle, Sr., even if he hadn't been a Muggle, didn't want any more to do with Merope or with his unborn child.
So who DID do the registering? That, alas, we are never told. Granted, Rowling did describe the registry process in an interview here:
The Ministry of Magic doesn't find out which children are magic. In Hogwarts there's a magical quill which detects the birth of a magical child, and writes his or her name down in a large parchment book. Every year Professor McGonagall checks the book, and sends owls to the people who are turning 11.
All of which is very nice, but the process is never mentioned in any of the books. Therefore, it's not canon.
Dumbledore, tiring of dealing with a canny and logical character, proceeds to use magic to deceive her:
…Harry now saw him slip his wand out of the pocket of his velvet suit, at the same time picking up a piece of perfectly blank paper from Mrs. Cole's desktop.
Dumbledore hands the paper to Mrs. Cole, waves his wand, and tells her that this paper will clarify everything. What she thinks it says, we're not told, but it's clear that Dumbledore has cast a spell that has compelled her to change her mind about what he's saying and stop questioning him immediately. The incantation is never spoken, but the STFU spell (as I keep thinking of it) smacks of the Imperius Curse.
I guess that controlling peoples' minds and wills is only bad when bad people do it, huh?
Next we get a repeat of what Dumbledore did in Chapter 3--zapping up liquor.
Then her eyes fell upon a bottle of gin and two glasses that had certainly not been present a few seconds before.
Dumbledore must be insanely popular at BYOB parties. Pity wizards don't have universities. I can just picture him zapping up extra booze at a kegger.
Mrs. Cole starts guzzling down the gin. I think that this is supposed to be humorous, but it isn't. Mrs. Cole isn't a comic character. From what we've seen so far, she's a decent woman with a lot of common sense doing a hard job. She's not being played for laughs. And we haven't seen any odious flaws in her personality that would make us want to see her get totally sozzled. The entire scene is just off.
Also, as the child of two Depression babies, I couldn't forget that a woman in a position like Mrs. Cole's wouldn't be allowed to drink on the job. If she is caught drinking on the job, or if she is drunk later, she could and probably would get fired. And, as I've said, this is 1938. Wars are heating up in Europe, and there's a little thing called a worldwide depression. AND THERE IS NO ECONOMIC SAFETY NET. No unemployment insurance. The banks have collapsed. Many people have lost most, if not all, of their savings. Without a job--and those who had jobs during the Depression were lucky--Mrs. Cole could end up broke and on the street…just like Merope.
Dumbledore is putting this woman's job and life at stake just so that he can get a few questions answered easily without having to answer any himself. Selfish prick.
I think that it was at this point that I started rooting for Dumbledore to die. And sooner, rather than later.
Dumbledore asks Mrs. Cole about Tom. Mrs. Cole tells him about Tom's birth. Merope, she says, staggered up the front steps on New Year's Eve:
We took her in, and she had the baby within the hour. And she was dead in another hour."
Doesn't exactly sound like "wouldn't lift a wand to save herself." It sounds more like "died from complications in childbirth." There's a real difference, Dumbles.
Mrs. Cole mentions next that there's something strange about Tom. Despite the spell, she then questions Dumbledore, reassuring herself that Tom will be taken away, whatever she says. She then mentions a few details about Tom:
"Billy Stubbs's rabbit. . . well, Tom said he didn't do it and I don't see how he could have done, but even so, it didn't hang itself from the rafters, did it?"
Mrs. Cole adds that she doesn't know how he hanged the rabbit--but she does know that Tom and Billy quarreled the day before the hanging.
And then" - Mrs. Cole took another swig of gin, slopping a little over her chin this time - "on the summer outing - we take them out, you know, once a year, to the countryside or to the seaside - well, Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop were never quite right afterwards, and all we ever got out of them was that they'd gone into a cave with Tom Riddle.
We now get what is known in fantasy as "the idiot plot," i.e., the plot that necessitates everyone in the story act like a complete idiot.
Prior to this story, most of the fandom assumed, based on Chamber of Secrets, that Tom Riddle, as a boy, was subtle and manipulative, so much so that no one suspected him of any evil. The only one who didn't trust him was Dumbledore, who had suspicions but who didn't know for certain that Tom wasn't simply the intelligent and sincere prefect he seemed to be. This, by the way, was canon-compatible and made sense. Everyone has known a thoroughly devious and manipulative person.
Now we find out that:
a) Tom was torturing and killing small animals, and torturing other children until they weren't right in the head, at the age of eleven.
b) The Muggles around him noticed this.
c) Dumbledore, reputedly the wisest wizard in the wizarding world, was told about Tom's abnormal behavior.
d) Tom himself, as we will see shortly, confirmed what Dumbledore was told.
e) Dumbledore, despite knowing of Tom's actions--which would be alarming in anyone, and which are downright frightening in a child--nevertheless decided to give Tom a place at Hogwarts.
f) When the Basilisk attacks started, Dumbledore did not immediately think of the boy whom he knew to be using Dark magic at the age of eleven, and who had tortured and killed living things before. (No one knew who had opened the Chamber, remember?)
g) Dumbledore also did not apparently share his information about Tom with other staff members, as he was the only one who ever suspected Tom might be more than he seemed.
h) Dumbledore is a freaking Legilimens. Even if he hadn't been told what Tom had done, he should have glimpsed a few unpleasant things in eleven-year-old Tom's mind. An eleven-year-old wizard should not be able to block a ninety-eight-year-old wizard from his mind.
Now, if Dumbledore and Tom hadn't met prior to Tom's admission, and if Tom had done his best to maintain a façade of normalcy and to avoid Dumbledore, I could understand CoS as it is written.
But that's not the case. Dumbledore is given a hell of a lot of information about Tom, both from Mrs. Cole and from Tom himself, and does absolutely nothing with it.
Many people have argued that, since the concept of psychopathy didn't exist in the Thirties, Dumbledore should be cut some slack. I disagree. The psychological concept might have been unknown. But surely even wizards had heard of mental instability and vicious cruelty.
If Mrs. Cole could figure out that something was wrong with Tom, Dumbledore should have been able to do the same. That's the bottom line.
Mrs. Cole then implies that other things, equally strange, have gone on as well, and tells Dumbledore outright that quite a lot of people would like to see Tom leave. Dumbledore tells her that Tom will still be coming back every summer. Mrs. Cole responds with what is undoubtedly English idiom...one that made no sense to my American ears:
"Oh, well, that's better than a whack on the nose with a rusty poker," said Mrs. Cole with a slight hiccup.
Which is a very weird thing to say. Almost anything would be better than a whack on the nose with a rusty poker. English expressions are quite odd.
Mrs. Cole then shows Dumbledore to Tom's bedroom--God, the unintentional slash subtext just keeps coming up, doesn't it?--and we meet young Tom:
Merope had got her dying wish: He was his handsome father in miniature, tall for eleven years old, dark-haired, and pale.
Of course he's tall for eleven. He hasn't just turned eleven. He's almost twelve.
Tom is suspicious of Dumbledore right from the start. He is instantly certain that Dumbledore is a doctor who's been called in to have a look at him. When Dumbledore says he's not, Tom orders him to tell the truth. Dumbledore resists Tom's order, however, and tells Tom that he's come to offer him a place at a new school. Tom immediately jumps to the conclusion that Dumbledore is from an asylum, and confirms one of Mrs. Cole's stories:
I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they'll tell you!"
Of course, since we already know that he can command people to say and do whatever he wants, the fact that Amy and Dennis will say he didn't do anything doesn't mean much.
"Hogwarts," Dumbledore went on, as though he had not heard Riddle's last words, "is a school for people with special abilities -"
This sounds very much like Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. That, or the "special class."
Tom doesn't like the way it sounds, either. Then Dumbledore explains that Hogwarts is a school of magic. I love Tom's reaction:
"It's. . . it's magic, what I can do?"
Well, DUH.
Dumbledore asks him what he can do. Tom mentions that he can make things move without touching them, and that he can compel animals to do what he wants. Then we get the kicker:
I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to."
I can just hear Tom playing River Tam: "I can kill you with my mind." Incidentally, why is a powerful and manipulative young psychopath admitting all this to an authority figure?
Tom then wants to know if Dumbledore is a wizard too. When Dumbledore says yes, Tom demands proof. Dumbledore obliges:
…Dumbledore drew his wand from an inside pocket of his suit jacket, pointed it at the shabby wardrobe in the corner, and gave the wand a casual flick.
The wardrobe burst into flames.
Congratulations, Dumbledore. You just taught a powerful and emotionally unstable boy--whom you already KNOW likes to control others, kill animals and torture small children--that he can use magic to set fire to things as well.
Two thousand points to WHATTHEFUCKERIN.
I refuse to call this Stu "Dumbledore" any longer. Stu, I hereby designate thee "Dumb and Dumber."
Tom is furious about the prospect of losing all of his property--which, since he doesn't have much, means all the more to him. However, the instant that Dumb and Dumber extinguishes the fire--leaving no damage, of course--Tom just wants to know where he can get a wand.
Oh, he's not thinking about using that spell that the Dumb One just demonstrated. Not at ALL.
Incidentally, Tom now has two of the qualities in the psychopathic triad--the common denominators with serial killers. He tortures and kills small animals (not to mention that he tortures small humans as well), and he has the ability and the inclination, at least, to start fires.
I wonder if he's a bed-wetter too?
The wardrobe starts rattling. The Dumb One tells Tom to open the door. Tom does, and finds a box in the wardrobe "shaking and rattling." Dumb and Dumber then asks him if there's anything in the box that he shouldn't have. Tom says he supposes so. Dumbledore-Stu commands him to open the box.
Harry, who had expected something much more exciting, saw a mess of small, everyday objects: a yo-yo, a silver thimble, and a tarnished mouth organ among them.
You would think that since Rowling makes a point of describing the objects, at least one would be of importance later. But no. They exist only to show that Voldemort likes taking trophies of his victories, and that the trophies are important to him.
The Dumb One orders Tom to return the trophies to their original owners. Tom is NOT pleased about that, but agrees. Dumb and Dumber then says something that is downright idiotic:
You have - inadvertently, I am sure - been using your powers in a way that is neither taught nor tolerated at our school.
INADVERTENTLY? Where the frell is he getting this from? Tom told him flat out that he can move things with his mind and that he can make animals do what he wants. Telekinesis could be accidental, but if he's making animals do what he wants, then, at least to some degree, Tom has control over his magic.
Geez, JKR. You just told us this two minutes ago. Try to keep up, will you?
Then the Dumb One tells Tom this:
All new wizards must accept that, in entering our world, they abide by our laws."
Would have been nice if someone had bothered to tell HARRY that, huh?
Tom then states baldly that he hasn't any money. I think he was hoping that the Totally Dumb One would figure this out on his own, but since Dumb and Dumber hadn't mentioned how Tom was going to pay for books and such, Tom decided to cut to the chase and just ask. (Proving, I think, that even at eleven, Tom is smarter than your average wizard.)
The Dumb One gives Tom a money pouch of Galleons and offers to take Tom to Diagon Alley. Tom says no, he'd rather go alone. This is the first normal kid reaction I've seen from him, and it makes perfect sense. I mean, if you have a choice between exploring a brand-new magical world all by yourself and splurging on whatever you want, or going shopping in said magical world with an authority figure you already don't like...what would YOU pick?
Blah blah Dumbledore-Stu gives Tom directions to the Leaky Cauldron, blah blah Tom doesn't like his first name, blah blah Tom can talk to snakes. All of which is boring, because the readers of the series know this stuff already.
And then we are out of the memory and back in Dumbledore's office. Dumbledore-Stu tries to retcon and show that he really did know what he was doing:
I returned to Hogwarts intending to keep an eye upon him, something I should have done in any case, given that he was alone and friendless, but which, already, I felt I ought to do for others' sake as much as his.
"Intending" to keep an eye on him. Obviously, he didn't do so.
"His powers, as you heard, were surprisingly well-developed for such a young wizard and - most interestingly and ominously of all - he had already discovered that he had some measure of control over them, and begun to use them consciously.
THEN WHY DID YOU SAY TOM WAS "INADVERTENTLY" MISUSING HIS POWERS, YOU TWIT?
*hands Harry back his CAPSLOCK OF RAGE™*
And as you saw, they were not the random experiments typical of young wizards: He was already using magic against other people, to frighten, to punish, to control.
Poor abused colons. Won't somebody think of the colons?
The little stories of the strangled rabbit and the young boy and girl he lured into a cave were most suggestive. . . . 'I can make them hurt if I want to. . . .'"
All stuff that was bothering the readers about five pages back. But hey! Nice to see that you're finally catching up.
Dumbledore then has this to say about Parselmouths:
"Yes, indeed; a rare ability, and one supposedly connected with the Dark Arts, although as we know, there are Parselmouths among the great and the good too.
Coupled with the possibility, raised in Chapter 10, that Dumbledore is a Parselmouth, this sounds like he's boasting again---just as he did when he said that he was more clever than most men, or when he said that his memory would be accurate and richly detailed.
And then we get this dollop of purple prose:
"Time is making fools of us again," said Dumbledore, indicating the dark sky beyond the windows.
Can't you just say "it's getting late"?
After that, Dumb and Dumber proceeds to analyze Tom. First, he mentions Tom's dislike of his name:
"There he showed his contempt for anything that tied him to other people, anything that made him ordinary. Even then, he wished to be different, separate, notorious.
Right, because as we all know, disliking your name as common and ordinary instantly marks you as displaying contempt for ties to others. Also, since when is "notorious" a synonym for "different" or "separate"? When, for that matter, did Tom display any desire for fame or notoriety during that conversation?
He shed his name, as you know, within a few short years of that conversation and created the mask of Lord Voldemort behind which he has been hidden for so long.
Whoa! And here I thought that Tom grew up to become Dolores Umbridge!
…It's the sixth book, Rowling. We already know who Tom grew up to be.
Grumblebore, sounding as if he's in a snit about something, then makes a fuss about Tom not wanting his companionship to Diagon Alley and how this shows that Tom was friendless.
No. It only shows that Tom wanted to explore the magical world on his own. Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar.
Finally, the Dumb One points out that Tom likes to collect trophies of his most unpleasant magical escapades:
Bear in mind this magpie-like tendency, for this, particularly, will be important later.
This reads almost like an author's note in the text. "Hey, readers! Pay attention to that conversation between Dumbledore and Tom, for it was Fraught With Significance. Fraught, I say!"
Also, if the Dumb One knows that Horcruxes will be important later, why is he putzing around like this? Why not just tell Harry outright? I mean, it's only the fate of the wizarding world at stake.
...Oh, right. Sorry. This is an idiot plot. The characters can't possibly do anything that makes sense.
***
I'll return with Chapter 17--A Sluggish Memory.
Katie was removed to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries the following day, by which time the news that she had been cursed had spread all over the school, though the details were confused and nobody other than Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Leanne seemed to know that Katie herself had not been the intended target.
I think that just saying "St. Mungo's Hospital" or "St. Mungo's" would have been sufficient. I mean, I go to the Conklin Building's Center for Wound Care and Hyperbaric Medicine every month or so. But no one calls it that. Even the people who work there don't call it that. They call it the Conklin Building, or the Wound Center. Infinitely simpler.
Also, I'd just like to note that Leanne never appeared before HBP, despite the fact that she's supposed to be a friend of Katie Bell, who's been around since the first book. Leanne never appears again, either. Can you say, "blatant plot device"?
"Oh, and Malfoy knows, of course," said Harry to Ron and Hermione, who continued their new policy of feigning deafness whenever Harry mentioned his Malfoy-Is-a-Death-Eater theory.
I don't know why they're ignoring Harry, because it's not a far-fetched theory at all. Draco is the one who, at twelve, told a Polyjuiced Harry and Ron that he'd like to help the Heir of Slytherin kill all the Mudbloods. Draco called Hermione a Mudblood in public, which is very racist for the wizarding world. Draco's father is a known Death Eater--heck, Ron and Hermione helped Harry fight him back in June. They know that Lucius is in Azkaban. They know that Draco loves his father and tries to imitate him in all things--half of his sentences are prefaced with "My father says." Even if they disregard what Draco said on the train about doing Voldemort a great service as mere boasting, Ron and Hermione know perfectly well where Draco's sympathies lie.
Harry goes to Dumbledore's office the following Monday for more of those private lessons with Dumbledore and his Pensieve. Dumbledore knows that Harry witnessed Katie's "accident" (though I'd call being handed a cursed necklace an on-purpose, wouldn't you?). After it's established that Katie is still very sick and that Snape, not Madam Pomfrey, came up with a treatment to "prevent a rapid spread of the curse," Harry asks Dumbledore where he was that weekend. Dumbledore's reply:
"I would rather not say just now," said Dumbledore. "However, I shall tell you in due course."
Harry is surprised by this. "You will?" is his reaction.
"Yes, I expect so," said Dumbledore, withdrawing a fresh bottle of silver memories from inside his robes and uncorking it with a prod of his wand.
Uh-HUH. Don't hold your breath, Harry. There's a vast difference between "I'll tell you when it's time" and "I think I'll tell you." As underlucius put it, it's like a parent saying "We'll see" when you ask if you can go to the sweet shop today.
Harry then mentions seeing Mundungus Fletcher in Hogsmeade. Dumbledore's reply is interesting:
"Ah yes, I am already aware that Mundungus has been treating your inheritance with light-fingered contempt," said Dumbledore, frowning a little.
First, I have to say I like the phrase "light-fingered contempt." But--wait a second, Dumbledore. You KNEW that Mundungus is stealing Harry's inheritance from Twelve Grimmauld Place? And you didn't think to mention it to the boy before now? He's losing his property. That's definitely his business, wouldn't you say? And if you didn't consider it his business, then it should have been the business of the Dursleys--whether you like them or not, they are his legal guardians.
Also, I don't know how wizarding law works, but I don't think that even the wizarding world would look very favorably on someone who discovers that a crime is being committed but who doesn't tell the victim and who does nothing to stop it. I believe the term for this is "accessory after the fact."
This is bad enough, but what Dumbledore says next is the icing on the cake.
"He has gone to ground since you accosted him outside the Three Broomsticks; I rather think he dreads facing me.
I rather got the impression that he dreaded facing HARRY. And that he might be afraid of, oh, I don't know, getting thrown in Azkaban for theft. Dumbledore didn't strike me as being part of the equation.
Harry then tells Dumbledore that he suspects Draco of being the one who gave Katie the necklace. Dumbledore gives him a politician's answer:
"I shall take all appropriate measures to investigate anyone who might have had a hand in Katie's accident."
Which does not mean, please note, that he'll investigate. Just that he'll take steps toward investigation. It's not the same thing.
Dumbledore then gives us a recap of what happened after the Pensieve scene in Chapter 10. Riddle went home to Little Hangleton; Merope, who was pregnant, remained in London. Harry, quite sensibly, wants to know how Dumbledore knows that Merope was in London.
"Because of the evidence of one Caractacus Burke," said Dumbledore, "who, by an odd coincidence, helped found the very shop whence came the necklace we have just been discussing."
Caractacus Burke's name is a shout-out to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by Ian Fleming. The hero of the story is Caracatus Potts, the inventor of the eponymous car. Say it fast--"crackpot." Burke's first name is almost the same…and of course, in England, a "berk" is a fool.
Burke relates how Merope, ragged and very pregnant, came to him to sell the locket her father almost strangled her with. He says that he confirmed the locket was Salazar Slytherin's with a few spells.
That's very odd, because men do not normally wear lockets, and, as near as I've been able to discover by Googling, lockets first started appearing in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries--roughly eight hundred years after the time of the Founders. I suspect that JKR's math is at fault again.
Burke describes the necklace as "almost priceless" because it belonged to Slytherin, and seems very proud of giving Merope ten Galleons in exchange. That's seventy-three dollars and thirty cents in American money, fifty pounds in British money, and 71.6 euros, according to the Wizarding World Currency Converter.
Harry is indignant about Merope being cheated, and doesn't understand why Merope didn't just use magic to get food for herself. I expected Dumbledore to say something about conjured food tasting like real food, but lacking certain nutrients…something, in other words, about magic being a useful tool but not a replacement for reality. Which, apparently, JKR said in an interview here. Here's the quote: There is legislation about what you can conjure and what you can't. Something that you conjure out of thin air will not last.
Although if conjured food doesn't last, as she states in the interview, I wonder about that feast at the beginning of every school term.
However, instead of explanations about the nature of magic and why Merope couldn't or shouldn't have conjured food, we get more of Dumbledore's assumptions:
"… it is my belief-I am guessing again, but I am sure I am right - that when her husband abandoned her, Merope stopped using magic.
This would make more sense if we had ever seen Merope START to use magic. There's no evidence that she knew how to cast a single successful spell. In fact, she may have been the Squib her father accused her of being.
And even if you accept Dumbledore's word that Merope used a love potion, she didn't have to brew it personally. She could have bought one, or even shoplifted one.
Of course, it is also possible that her unrequited love and the attendant despair sapped her of her powers; that can happen.
It's clear in retrospect that Rowling inserted this line to cover her arse about Tonks. But considered simply as information about Merope…well, it seems that Dumbledore is blaming Merope again, saying that her refusal, conscious or subconscious, to use magic caused her death. Me, I think that poverty, lack of food (and most likely shelter and pre-natal care as well, for they too cost money), plus years of abuse took their toll far more than lack of magic did.
In any case, as you are about to see, Merope refused to raise her wand even to save her own life."
*mimicking Dumbledore-Stu* In any case, we never see Merope again. We hear about her, but the glimpse we got of her in Chapter 10 is all that we get. Therefore, we don't know if Merope refused to raise her wand to save her own life or not.
Also, I think that Dumbledore has just crossed the line from guesswork to outright lying.
After a bit more discussion about Merope (who, Dumbledore says, "never had your mother's courage"--and how does HE know how much courage it took for her to endure living with her father and brother?), we're told whose memory we'll be sharing this time:
"This time," said Dumbledore, "we are going to enter my memory. I think you will find it both rich in detail and satisfyingly accurate.
You know, Rowling, if the memory is detailed and accurate, you won't have to tell me. I'll notice on my own. The fact that you're telling me this ahead of time makes me suspect that you know it's neither, but that you hope I'll believe you and not the evidence of my own eyes.
Oh, and when did Dumbledore start imitating Gilderoy Lockhart when it comes to self-promotion?
The Pensieve takes Dumbledore and Harry to a street in London. We then get a look at the younger version of Dumbledore:
This younger Albus Dumbledore's long hair and beard were auburn.
I suspect that Dumbledore's hair is auburn because it is shown to be in the diary flashback in CoS.
Nevertheless, the auburn hair is rather odd, as this is the year that Tom Riddle is invited to enter Hogwarts. According to HBP, Tom was born on December 31st. JKR says that he was born in 1926. This would mean that he'd have to wait till the September of what would be his twelfth year to enter Hogwarts--which makes this 1938. According to the official timeline, Dumbledore was born around 1840. This auburn-haired Stu is ninety-eight years old.
I know that wizards can live longer than Muggles, and that they sometimes look about twenty years younger than their true age. So I could see it if Dumbledore looked seventy-something, or even sixtyish. But an auburn-haired man of nearly one hundred? He must be one of Miss Clairol's best customers, that's all I can say.
Having reached their side of the street, he strode off along the pavement, drawing many curious glances due to the flamboyantly cut suit of plum velvet that he was wearing.
This purple velvet suit--which I envision looking something like this:
reminds me of a routine that satirist Mark Russell used to do involving euphemisms for homosexuality:
"A kid comes home from school and says, "Mom. Dad. You'd better sit down for this. I've something to tell you. I'm...flamboyant."
Anyway, we follow Velvet Goldmine! Dumbledore to an orphanage, where we meet Mrs. Cole, the matron. I love her reaction to Dumbledore's suit:
...her eyes fell upon Dumbledore and she stopped dead in her tracks, looking as astonished as if a giraffe had just crossed her threshold.
Considering that it's 1938 and that Muggle mens' fashion tend toward the conservative, that's an excellent comparison.
Mrs. Cole and Dumbledore go to her room--"part sitting room, part office" is how it's described. Dumbledore announces that he's here about Tom Riddle.
Mrs. Cole seems to be a fairly intelligent woman. She doesn't see how Tom got a place at Hogwarts; she knows he's never put in for a scholarship, and when Dumbledore says that Tom's been down for Hogwarts since birth, Mrs. Cole becomes suspicious, and wants to know who registered him. It's a good question, since Merope died in childbirth and Tom Riddle, Sr., even if he hadn't been a Muggle, didn't want any more to do with Merope or with his unborn child.
So who DID do the registering? That, alas, we are never told. Granted, Rowling did describe the registry process in an interview here:
The Ministry of Magic doesn't find out which children are magic. In Hogwarts there's a magical quill which detects the birth of a magical child, and writes his or her name down in a large parchment book. Every year Professor McGonagall checks the book, and sends owls to the people who are turning 11.
All of which is very nice, but the process is never mentioned in any of the books. Therefore, it's not canon.
Dumbledore, tiring of dealing with a canny and logical character, proceeds to use magic to deceive her:
…Harry now saw him slip his wand out of the pocket of his velvet suit, at the same time picking up a piece of perfectly blank paper from Mrs. Cole's desktop.
Dumbledore hands the paper to Mrs. Cole, waves his wand, and tells her that this paper will clarify everything. What she thinks it says, we're not told, but it's clear that Dumbledore has cast a spell that has compelled her to change her mind about what he's saying and stop questioning him immediately. The incantation is never spoken, but the STFU spell (as I keep thinking of it) smacks of the Imperius Curse.
I guess that controlling peoples' minds and wills is only bad when bad people do it, huh?
Next we get a repeat of what Dumbledore did in Chapter 3--zapping up liquor.
Then her eyes fell upon a bottle of gin and two glasses that had certainly not been present a few seconds before.
Dumbledore must be insanely popular at BYOB parties. Pity wizards don't have universities. I can just picture him zapping up extra booze at a kegger.
Mrs. Cole starts guzzling down the gin. I think that this is supposed to be humorous, but it isn't. Mrs. Cole isn't a comic character. From what we've seen so far, she's a decent woman with a lot of common sense doing a hard job. She's not being played for laughs. And we haven't seen any odious flaws in her personality that would make us want to see her get totally sozzled. The entire scene is just off.
Also, as the child of two Depression babies, I couldn't forget that a woman in a position like Mrs. Cole's wouldn't be allowed to drink on the job. If she is caught drinking on the job, or if she is drunk later, she could and probably would get fired. And, as I've said, this is 1938. Wars are heating up in Europe, and there's a little thing called a worldwide depression. AND THERE IS NO ECONOMIC SAFETY NET. No unemployment insurance. The banks have collapsed. Many people have lost most, if not all, of their savings. Without a job--and those who had jobs during the Depression were lucky--Mrs. Cole could end up broke and on the street…just like Merope.
Dumbledore is putting this woman's job and life at stake just so that he can get a few questions answered easily without having to answer any himself. Selfish prick.
I think that it was at this point that I started rooting for Dumbledore to die. And sooner, rather than later.
Dumbledore asks Mrs. Cole about Tom. Mrs. Cole tells him about Tom's birth. Merope, she says, staggered up the front steps on New Year's Eve:
We took her in, and she had the baby within the hour. And she was dead in another hour."
Doesn't exactly sound like "wouldn't lift a wand to save herself." It sounds more like "died from complications in childbirth." There's a real difference, Dumbles.
Mrs. Cole mentions next that there's something strange about Tom. Despite the spell, she then questions Dumbledore, reassuring herself that Tom will be taken away, whatever she says. She then mentions a few details about Tom:
"Billy Stubbs's rabbit. . . well, Tom said he didn't do it and I don't see how he could have done, but even so, it didn't hang itself from the rafters, did it?"
Mrs. Cole adds that she doesn't know how he hanged the rabbit--but she does know that Tom and Billy quarreled the day before the hanging.
And then" - Mrs. Cole took another swig of gin, slopping a little over her chin this time - "on the summer outing - we take them out, you know, once a year, to the countryside or to the seaside - well, Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop were never quite right afterwards, and all we ever got out of them was that they'd gone into a cave with Tom Riddle.
We now get what is known in fantasy as "the idiot plot," i.e., the plot that necessitates everyone in the story act like a complete idiot.
Prior to this story, most of the fandom assumed, based on Chamber of Secrets, that Tom Riddle, as a boy, was subtle and manipulative, so much so that no one suspected him of any evil. The only one who didn't trust him was Dumbledore, who had suspicions but who didn't know for certain that Tom wasn't simply the intelligent and sincere prefect he seemed to be. This, by the way, was canon-compatible and made sense. Everyone has known a thoroughly devious and manipulative person.
Now we find out that:
a) Tom was torturing and killing small animals, and torturing other children until they weren't right in the head, at the age of eleven.
b) The Muggles around him noticed this.
c) Dumbledore, reputedly the wisest wizard in the wizarding world, was told about Tom's abnormal behavior.
d) Tom himself, as we will see shortly, confirmed what Dumbledore was told.
e) Dumbledore, despite knowing of Tom's actions--which would be alarming in anyone, and which are downright frightening in a child--nevertheless decided to give Tom a place at Hogwarts.
f) When the Basilisk attacks started, Dumbledore did not immediately think of the boy whom he knew to be using Dark magic at the age of eleven, and who had tortured and killed living things before. (No one knew who had opened the Chamber, remember?)
g) Dumbledore also did not apparently share his information about Tom with other staff members, as he was the only one who ever suspected Tom might be more than he seemed.
h) Dumbledore is a freaking Legilimens. Even if he hadn't been told what Tom had done, he should have glimpsed a few unpleasant things in eleven-year-old Tom's mind. An eleven-year-old wizard should not be able to block a ninety-eight-year-old wizard from his mind.
Now, if Dumbledore and Tom hadn't met prior to Tom's admission, and if Tom had done his best to maintain a façade of normalcy and to avoid Dumbledore, I could understand CoS as it is written.
But that's not the case. Dumbledore is given a hell of a lot of information about Tom, both from Mrs. Cole and from Tom himself, and does absolutely nothing with it.
Many people have argued that, since the concept of psychopathy didn't exist in the Thirties, Dumbledore should be cut some slack. I disagree. The psychological concept might have been unknown. But surely even wizards had heard of mental instability and vicious cruelty.
If Mrs. Cole could figure out that something was wrong with Tom, Dumbledore should have been able to do the same. That's the bottom line.
Mrs. Cole then implies that other things, equally strange, have gone on as well, and tells Dumbledore outright that quite a lot of people would like to see Tom leave. Dumbledore tells her that Tom will still be coming back every summer. Mrs. Cole responds with what is undoubtedly English idiom...one that made no sense to my American ears:
"Oh, well, that's better than a whack on the nose with a rusty poker," said Mrs. Cole with a slight hiccup.
Which is a very weird thing to say. Almost anything would be better than a whack on the nose with a rusty poker. English expressions are quite odd.
Mrs. Cole then shows Dumbledore to Tom's bedroom--God, the unintentional slash subtext just keeps coming up, doesn't it?--and we meet young Tom:
Merope had got her dying wish: He was his handsome father in miniature, tall for eleven years old, dark-haired, and pale.
Of course he's tall for eleven. He hasn't just turned eleven. He's almost twelve.
Tom is suspicious of Dumbledore right from the start. He is instantly certain that Dumbledore is a doctor who's been called in to have a look at him. When Dumbledore says he's not, Tom orders him to tell the truth. Dumbledore resists Tom's order, however, and tells Tom that he's come to offer him a place at a new school. Tom immediately jumps to the conclusion that Dumbledore is from an asylum, and confirms one of Mrs. Cole's stories:
I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they'll tell you!"
Of course, since we already know that he can command people to say and do whatever he wants, the fact that Amy and Dennis will say he didn't do anything doesn't mean much.
"Hogwarts," Dumbledore went on, as though he had not heard Riddle's last words, "is a school for people with special abilities -"
This sounds very much like Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. That, or the "special class."
Tom doesn't like the way it sounds, either. Then Dumbledore explains that Hogwarts is a school of magic. I love Tom's reaction:
"It's. . . it's magic, what I can do?"
Well, DUH.
Dumbledore asks him what he can do. Tom mentions that he can make things move without touching them, and that he can compel animals to do what he wants. Then we get the kicker:
I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to."
I can just hear Tom playing River Tam: "I can kill you with my mind." Incidentally, why is a powerful and manipulative young psychopath admitting all this to an authority figure?
Tom then wants to know if Dumbledore is a wizard too. When Dumbledore says yes, Tom demands proof. Dumbledore obliges:
…Dumbledore drew his wand from an inside pocket of his suit jacket, pointed it at the shabby wardrobe in the corner, and gave the wand a casual flick.
The wardrobe burst into flames.
Congratulations, Dumbledore. You just taught a powerful and emotionally unstable boy--whom you already KNOW likes to control others, kill animals and torture small children--that he can use magic to set fire to things as well.
Two thousand points to WHATTHEFUCKERIN.
I refuse to call this Stu "Dumbledore" any longer. Stu, I hereby designate thee "Dumb and Dumber."
Tom is furious about the prospect of losing all of his property--which, since he doesn't have much, means all the more to him. However, the instant that Dumb and Dumber extinguishes the fire--leaving no damage, of course--Tom just wants to know where he can get a wand.
Oh, he's not thinking about using that spell that the Dumb One just demonstrated. Not at ALL.
Incidentally, Tom now has two of the qualities in the psychopathic triad--the common denominators with serial killers. He tortures and kills small animals (not to mention that he tortures small humans as well), and he has the ability and the inclination, at least, to start fires.
I wonder if he's a bed-wetter too?
The wardrobe starts rattling. The Dumb One tells Tom to open the door. Tom does, and finds a box in the wardrobe "shaking and rattling." Dumb and Dumber then asks him if there's anything in the box that he shouldn't have. Tom says he supposes so. Dumbledore-Stu commands him to open the box.
Harry, who had expected something much more exciting, saw a mess of small, everyday objects: a yo-yo, a silver thimble, and a tarnished mouth organ among them.
You would think that since Rowling makes a point of describing the objects, at least one would be of importance later. But no. They exist only to show that Voldemort likes taking trophies of his victories, and that the trophies are important to him.
The Dumb One orders Tom to return the trophies to their original owners. Tom is NOT pleased about that, but agrees. Dumb and Dumber then says something that is downright idiotic:
You have - inadvertently, I am sure - been using your powers in a way that is neither taught nor tolerated at our school.
INADVERTENTLY? Where the frell is he getting this from? Tom told him flat out that he can move things with his mind and that he can make animals do what he wants. Telekinesis could be accidental, but if he's making animals do what he wants, then, at least to some degree, Tom has control over his magic.
Geez, JKR. You just told us this two minutes ago. Try to keep up, will you?
Then the Dumb One tells Tom this:
All new wizards must accept that, in entering our world, they abide by our laws."
Would have been nice if someone had bothered to tell HARRY that, huh?
Tom then states baldly that he hasn't any money. I think he was hoping that the Totally Dumb One would figure this out on his own, but since Dumb and Dumber hadn't mentioned how Tom was going to pay for books and such, Tom decided to cut to the chase and just ask. (Proving, I think, that even at eleven, Tom is smarter than your average wizard.)
The Dumb One gives Tom a money pouch of Galleons and offers to take Tom to Diagon Alley. Tom says no, he'd rather go alone. This is the first normal kid reaction I've seen from him, and it makes perfect sense. I mean, if you have a choice between exploring a brand-new magical world all by yourself and splurging on whatever you want, or going shopping in said magical world with an authority figure you already don't like...what would YOU pick?
Blah blah Dumbledore-Stu gives Tom directions to the Leaky Cauldron, blah blah Tom doesn't like his first name, blah blah Tom can talk to snakes. All of which is boring, because the readers of the series know this stuff already.
And then we are out of the memory and back in Dumbledore's office. Dumbledore-Stu tries to retcon and show that he really did know what he was doing:
I returned to Hogwarts intending to keep an eye upon him, something I should have done in any case, given that he was alone and friendless, but which, already, I felt I ought to do for others' sake as much as his.
"Intending" to keep an eye on him. Obviously, he didn't do so.
"His powers, as you heard, were surprisingly well-developed for such a young wizard and - most interestingly and ominously of all - he had already discovered that he had some measure of control over them, and begun to use them consciously.
THEN WHY DID YOU SAY TOM WAS "INADVERTENTLY" MISUSING HIS POWERS, YOU TWIT?
*hands Harry back his CAPSLOCK OF RAGE™*
And as you saw, they were not the random experiments typical of young wizards: He was already using magic against other people, to frighten, to punish, to control.
Poor abused colons. Won't somebody think of the colons?
The little stories of the strangled rabbit and the young boy and girl he lured into a cave were most suggestive. . . . 'I can make them hurt if I want to. . . .'"
All stuff that was bothering the readers about five pages back. But hey! Nice to see that you're finally catching up.
Dumbledore then has this to say about Parselmouths:
"Yes, indeed; a rare ability, and one supposedly connected with the Dark Arts, although as we know, there are Parselmouths among the great and the good too.
Coupled with the possibility, raised in Chapter 10, that Dumbledore is a Parselmouth, this sounds like he's boasting again---just as he did when he said that he was more clever than most men, or when he said that his memory would be accurate and richly detailed.
And then we get this dollop of purple prose:
"Time is making fools of us again," said Dumbledore, indicating the dark sky beyond the windows.
Can't you just say "it's getting late"?
After that, Dumb and Dumber proceeds to analyze Tom. First, he mentions Tom's dislike of his name:
"There he showed his contempt for anything that tied him to other people, anything that made him ordinary. Even then, he wished to be different, separate, notorious.
Right, because as we all know, disliking your name as common and ordinary instantly marks you as displaying contempt for ties to others. Also, since when is "notorious" a synonym for "different" or "separate"? When, for that matter, did Tom display any desire for fame or notoriety during that conversation?
He shed his name, as you know, within a few short years of that conversation and created the mask of Lord Voldemort behind which he has been hidden for so long.
Whoa! And here I thought that Tom grew up to become Dolores Umbridge!
…It's the sixth book, Rowling. We already know who Tom grew up to be.
Grumblebore, sounding as if he's in a snit about something, then makes a fuss about Tom not wanting his companionship to Diagon Alley and how this shows that Tom was friendless.
No. It only shows that Tom wanted to explore the magical world on his own. Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar.
Finally, the Dumb One points out that Tom likes to collect trophies of his most unpleasant magical escapades:
Bear in mind this magpie-like tendency, for this, particularly, will be important later.
This reads almost like an author's note in the text. "Hey, readers! Pay attention to that conversation between Dumbledore and Tom, for it was Fraught With Significance. Fraught, I say!"
Also, if the Dumb One knows that Horcruxes will be important later, why is he putzing around like this? Why not just tell Harry outright? I mean, it's only the fate of the wizarding world at stake.
...Oh, right. Sorry. This is an idiot plot. The characters can't possibly do anything that makes sense.
***
I'll return with Chapter 17--A Sluggish Memory.